Herdsmen (one word in Greek) is translated by a descriptive clause in Good News Translation: “men who had been taking care of the pigs.” The difficulty is that of finding a technical term of the proper level for “men who take care of pigs.” Both Jerusalem Bible and New American Bible render “swineherds,” but this can possibly be taken to mean “herds of swine” at first reading. New English Bible renders “men in charge of them.” Most translations will do something similar to Good News Bible.

Fled (Good News Translation “ran away”) is rendered idiomatically as “took to their heels” by New English Bible and New American Bible. Barclay effectively translates this part of the verse as one concise sentence, “The herdsmen fled.”

Few languages will use a participle like going, but will say instead “they went.”

Instead of city, “town” is a more accurate reflection of the size of Gadara, for those languages that do distinguish between the two words.

Everything, and what had happened to the demoniacs is a rather odd structure in Greek, which is literally “everything and the things of the demon-possessed men.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch renders “what they had experienced, and how the two demon-possessed men had been healed.” Everything can also be “everything that had taken place.”

The demoniacs are “the men who had been possessed by the evil spirits.” Note that they no longer were possessed, since these spirits had been expelled.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .